Gun sight



@calms HUUH A. E. HoRNBAcK Sept. l5, 1942.

GUN S IGHT Filed Nov. 1, 1941 gratuitementmit.

Patented Sept. 15, 1942 563mm ll'OUlll GUN SIGHT Arch E. Hornback, Chicago, Ill., assignor of onehalf to J. G. McNeil, Chicago, lli.

Application November 1, 1941, Serial No. 417,463

1 Claim. A(Cl. 33-47) This invention relates to improvements in gun sights and more particularly to a gun sight which may be readily attached to the barrel of a pistol, rie or cannon which will aid in the aiming of the rearm when the light upon the target is poor or in the dark.

An object of this invention is to provide a simple, inexpensive and serviceable sight which may be readily attached to the barrel of the firearm and is provided with means rendering it luminous in the absence of strong light.

Another advantage of this improved sighting attachment is that with a radium active composition applied to the wings, the surfaces of the wings are visible both in strong light or in poor light or darkness. While the normal sights upon a :firearm are rigid, this sighting attachment is movable and is so constructed that when the luminous wings are brought together upon a target the line of sight through them is parallel to the axis of the gun barrel so that no matter where this sighting attachment may be positioned upon the gun barrel it may be employed as a sight at any time independently of the rigid or normal sights of the firearm.

With these and other objects in view, reference is made to the accompanying sheet of drawing which illustrates a preferred form of this invention with the understanding that minor changes may be made without departing from the scope thereof.

Figure 1 is a fragmentary View in side elevation of a pistol, illustrating in full lines the novel sight as attached to the barrel and in dotted lines the position the sight assumes in sliding the sight over the barrel before turning on the barrel to the position shown in full lines.

Figure 2 is a detail view in end elevation looking in the direction of the arrows on the line 2-2 in Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a top plan of Figure 2.

Figure 4 is a View in perspective of this improved gun sight.

It is preferable to construct this sight by stamping it from a strip of annealed spring steel to the conformation shown and then atethesight has been formed to temper the steel. After the sight has been formed a luminous material is applied to the sighting wings as hereinafter described.

The gun sight is stamped to form a trough like section between angularly disposed side walls I and 2. The trough like section is supported upon the gun barrel with the line passing through the meeting edges of the walls l and 2 parallel with 55 the axis of the barrel by bending back the sidev walls I and 2 to form parallel ysupports 3 and 4 which are extended to form resilient members 5 and 6 shaped to embrace the gun barrel in spaced apart lrelation to secure the sight in place thereon.

The side walls l and 2 of the trough on opposite sides are extended beyond supports 3 and 4 at opposite ends and are then bent at right angles to the respective supporting side wall as shown in Figure 4. These bent back portions form wings 1 and 8 of similar curved conformation so that when the sight is in position on the gun barrel the adjacent edges of these wings 'l and 8 when aligned upon a target will form a V, the bottom of which will form a line of sight parallel to the axis of the gun barrel, as shown in Figure l. For the purpose of aligning the wings 1 and 8 when the light is poor or in the dark, the surface of the wing next adjacent the eye of the marksman is made luminous by` applying luminous paint 9 `or other'luminous material such as radium active compositions to the entire surface of that side of the wing.

The attachment is readily inserted over the barrel of a firearm by first inverting it as shown in Figure 1 and passing it foward the rear of the firearm with the ends of the resilient members 5 passing on each side of the front sight and then rotating it about the barrel and causing it to engage the end of the barrel where it joins the frame which is the normal position, as shown in Figure 1, with one luminous wing 9 close to the normal rear sight.

It has been found by practice that by forming the supporting walls 3 and 4 in such a manner that when the gun sight is placed upon the gun barrel the bottom of the V between the luminous wings 1 and 8 will lie in line of sight between the rear sight and front sight of the firearm, a bead may be readily drawn upon the target when the wings are separated from each other at a distance approximating the outer diameter of the barrel thereby saving time and movement in bringing the front sight and rear sight in line with each other, no matter how long a barrel is employed in the rearm, as the effect of this sighting attachment is to bring the front sight that much closer to the rear sight.

It is readily seen that this sight may be adapted to any size pistol, rifle, machine gun or other firearm and when not needed in poor light may be readily moved to one side to allow the marksman to use the normal sights upon the firearm in aiming.

This sighting attachment when applied to a pistol such as carried by the police, who are constantly called upon to use their rearms when light is poor or Where there is no light, will quickly and properly align the bore of the rearm in the direction of the sound or shadow which forms the target. For such uses at short range it is not necessary to exactly align the bottom of the V between the wings between the front and rear sights of the pistol because no matter what position the sighting attachment may be upon the barrel when the marksman brings the luminous wings 1 and 8 together to form a V, the line of sight between them will be parallel to the bore of the rearm.

This sighting -attachment is also of great advantage When applied to machine guns of the Army which are often found necessary to be red in the dusk or evening in the dark and will obviate the necessity of tracer bullets. This sighting attachment is of particular advantage upon machine guns in military airplanes as it will avoid the necessity of ring several bursts of tracer bullets to locate the target.

What I claim is:

An integral sheet metal sighting attachment for firearms having a trough like portion supported upon the barrel of the firearm with the intersection of the sides of the trough lying parallel to the axis of the bore of the barrel and having resilient depending members adapted to slide over the exterior of the barrel and detachably secure the attachment thereto, the sides of the trough-like member being formed at opposite ends, respectively, with a wing bent to partially obstruct the View along said trough, the free edge of each wing being formed on a curve to apparently intersect the corresponding edge of the other to apparently form a V-shaped notch when sighting along the trough, the surface of each ARCH HRNBACK. 

